Less than a week before the 2026 BWF World Championships open at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Arena on August 17, France’s Toma Junior Popov and his younger brother Christo Popov have made their intentions clear. Training together at their longtime Fos-sur-Mer base, both shuttlers insist nothing short of gold will satisfy them this week. “There is no room for negotiation about the target. It is the World Championships gold medal,” Toma Junior Popov said bluntly.
Popov Brothers World Championships Ambitions Take Shape in Singles
Toma Junior Popov, seeded in the 9-16 band, opens against Poland’s Dominik Kwinta, who currently sits outside the world’s top 100. The Frenchman already beat Kwinta earlier this year at the European Championships, a run that carried him all the way to the semi-finals before he was stopped by an unlikely opponent: his own brother. Denmark’s Anders Antonsen, however, remains a stubborn obstacle further down the road, since Toma has yet to beat him in their career meetings, including a straight-games loss at the Japan Open last month.
Christo Popov arrives in far stronger form. Fresh off winning this year’s European Championships title, where he defeated Antonsen in the final, the fifth-to-eighth seed now sits at a career-high world No. 4. He opens against Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto, while fellow Frenchman Alex Lanier lurks nearby as a dangerous seeded threat. “Dare to dream bigger,” Christo said simply.
Popov Brothers World Championships Hopes Extend to Doubles
Beyond singles, the brothers will also chase glory together in men’s doubles. They first face Japan’s Takumi Nomura and Yuichi Shimogami, and should they advance, top-seeded defending champions Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung-jae of South Korea await, the very pair who denied them the European title earlier this year. With momentum building on multiple fronts, the Popov brothers head into New Delhi ready to test just how far their ambitions can carry them.
